I tried to position the mug of coffee enough for the whole moon to reflect on the surface, but it didn’t even get close to that. Instead I was left in solitude, desperate for a smoke and a beer. Trying to stay awake got worse by every second. A few years back the night was the best time for me to think. Maybe I was trying to think like the killer. Why would I try to kill at night? Well, why wouldn’t I?
I was beginning to get stupid. There was nothing to work with other than distinct calls to the police station with static. They would happen every night before someone would vanish. Sleep was getting the best of me and I knew that I would have to sleep in the police station at this rate, which was far from unusual to my fellow peers. It’s like I kept a clean shave and I always had my toothbrush with me, just in case. That worked from everything from hook ups to sleeping late at work.
Everyone had gone and I had already spun on the chair all over my office. I kept avoiding the nearly pristine white board, which still had leftover writing from the killer cats case. In the end, it was just some crazy guy who would steal cats for his housebound wife. But it took us a few weeks to figure out. At least we weren’t the joke of the town, yet.
I spun around, watching the full moon. I should’ve snuck in some beer with me, but it was too late to drive off in my tired state and find some open bar.
The first vanishing was an old lady. Having the population consist mostly of old people, it was only usual that all the weird things would happen to them. Usually they would be alone, so no one would bother right away. The friends thinking that death had just taken them away silently and reaching to pick up the phone to hear that your friend had passed wasn’t the happiest thing to do. The more I watched, the more I would see how they dreaded those calls and would rather assume dead than call to find out what the deal had been.
“She never left her keys. I just thought of it as carelessness and got a bit angry, because I told her a couple of times, ‘lady, please leave your keys.’” Those were the inn owner’s first words to me. I had driven a good hour and a half to reach the place. “But her room was clean. No suitcase, nothing.”
He didn’t look too worried, while I would’ve smoked in his case, show at least a bit more of concern. The inn owner seemed more curious than anything. He was a topic of discussion for a while. He had taken over the inn after his father’s passing. His mother had died away around ten years ago. I just watched him carefully. He looked even scruffier than I would be on a really bad day, and that was his usual attire. Long wavy black hair, stubble and would wear bright clothing, as if he was some children’s TV show presenter.
“I can show you the room, if you’d like. But it’s been cleaned. I had no idea that a vanishing would take place.” It took us a week to patch what was going on. A friend of Isabella, the old lady who vanished, called in worried after ringing the inn. She claimed that Isabella went for a brief break just to see the woods, to find some peace of mind since her son was divorcing at a late age. It was in all mother’s instincts to worry. It was an unusual choice, but it was picturesque, so both me and the other police officers didn’t bat an eyelash. We also heard that it was cheap.
“Sorry, my manners.” The inn owner scratches his stubble briefly. “I’m Frank Williams.”
“I know. I’m Sheriff Andrea Bianchi.” See, the thing he was known for were his podcasts. He would write eerie stories about the woods behind the inn. The woods were very pretty, but I would never describe them as eerie, they held the same feeling as any other woods would. Nothing magical or anything spooky like Twin Peaks. He would do them as if they were reports. No one took them seriously. It had everything from alien abduction to werewolves. But now, with the lady vanishing, a few glances were exchanged between two female police officers.
“You wouldn’t say that the podcast guy’s imagination ran a bit into reality, would you?” The question startled us all, as we were patching up everything.
We shook hands there and then.
“I listen to your podcasts sometimes.” I said and smiled slightly, making brief conversation.
“Oh, really?” The inn owner grinned at me and I couldn’t help but feel my eyes ache from his nearly neon yellow t-shirt.
“Yeah, they’re great.” When I’m drunk, I don’t add, but it’s true. I do turn them on after a good drink or during one, so that I can look past the bad writing. Because it’s still entertaining to read about places you know and based off people you’ve heard about. There’s a reason local authors exist and attract an audience.
“But I’m not here to talk about that.” I said that to make sure that I don’t trail off too much, which seems to upset him. I got my notebook out which only has the basic facts written down. We had also received the weird static phone call which couldn’t be traced anywhere and we didn’t bother much at the time. “Did Isabella ever book with you before?”
“No”, he says, shaking his head. “We have a discount if you book again and I made sure to look through the logs if she had earlier, but no.”
“Alright,” I said. He showed me the pristinely clean room afterwards. The inn was rather small, a Bed and Breakfast of sorts. The rooms were cosy, but old, giving it a rustic look. Every room had it’s own unique rug and bed linen, which clashed heavily against the inn owner’s style, so I assumed he kept it the same way after his dad did. Just like old people, younger people would keep their parents’ house the same, afraid of let go of the time spent and allowing themselves to move on. That’s why we still had cemeteries for centuries. We have a cult of never letting go.
I looked around the room, thankful that it wasn’t occupied by someone new, but there was no eerie feeling about it. It seemed cleansed through and through. There was no horror story backdrop where I would want to exit the room. Somewhere, deep down secretly, I listened to the inn owner’s stories because I wanted to be in one. But there was nothing eerie about an old lady disappearing. Of course, I could’ve stretched it then but there was nothing out of the ordinary. We had no body either.
I asked the inn owner to leave for a while, as I sat on the edge of the bed. Wondering where would I even go, what would I do if I were an old lady.
I ended up falling back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I probably would have wanted to live an exciting life, something to look at when I’d be on my deathbed. Surely lots of men, too. Some affairs, some turmoil. I rubbed my face and sat up, before starting to raid the desk and the closet, but there was absolutely nothing to be found. What the hell was I even relying on?
I ended up thanking the inn owner, Frank, who seemed nice enough for now. I walked briefly around the woods, but it was daylight, so whatever was lurking or could have tempted her was long gone too. But nothing really attracted my eye. I kept walking and walking through the thick trees, as the branches would start growing and the roots would sink deeper. The birds were singing wildly, trying to find a mate. I stopped for a while and took out a cigarette, looking behind me as if someone would be judging me of doing that on the job. But there was nothing and I didn’t walk until the very end. I guess I wasn’t as prepared at the time and since it was just one lady, the first day of the investigation after her being gone for a week, we didn’t have much hope.
The second time it was a thirty something man, who went by the name of Patrick Jones. He wasn’t from around here and according to Frank, he had decided to stay for the night while driving further up north to get to see the coast line. But this time it was different.
“He told me that he was going to the woods for a brief while.” Frank said this time, fiddling with the necklace of different wooden cut-outs. “I asked him what for, because it was getting late and I was closing the reception down.”
I imagined Frank just lazily reading on the small reception next to the old hanging keys which even had rust on them, maybe browsing his phone. Today he had his hair in a ponytail and a black plain t-shirt, which was a heavy contrast to what I’ve been used to seeing him in. I also got showed his Instagram by Lucy, who was looking him up to see if he had been up to anything at all which would deem him suspicious since this was the second missing person so far. There were photos of him in the inn obviously, and as I kept on browsing I saw photos of him with another man. They were dated a few months ago and suddenly he disappeared. They weren’t too explicitly couple-like, but I knew a gay couple when I saw one, batting for the same team for many years. It was several Halloween outfits together, some hiking photos, into the same vanishing woods.
I felt bad at first, wondering if to bring them up but I had no intention of venturing into his private life and he wasn’t exactly vocal about who he was with. His stories on the podcast barely had any love interests, it was always about the cannibalistic fiends or bizarre aliens. But if this would keep on going, I would have to ask what happened to his boyfriend, who I wasn’t sure if I had known.
“He never replied, just went on.” A question seemed to be dwelling on the inn owner’s lips, as he slightly opened his mouth but never dared to properly ask what was on his mind. I waited. “Do I have to close the inn down?”
“No, no.” I said. It wasn’t like we had any evidence against him.
Lucy had started her extensive search, making sure that Frank wasn’t involved in any of the satanic cults which were in our city back in the 90s. It was a popular belief that everything would be related to it even if we didn’t have any cases about it ever since. Everything seemed to start revolving around the vanishing of the two people. They weren’t related in any way either. We barely had any clues on who Patrick Jones even was. Frank had claimed to have seen his ID. That was all we had. We also got the static phone call and I was the one who picked it up this time, just idly standing next to reception, as our secretary went for a brief coffee break.
Nothing made sense.
“We’re not even sure… Patrick Jones exists.” Lucy had muttered into her mug, her blonde hair in a newly-cut bob. But by the evening we had several photos and he ended up matching Frank’s description.
“But… if he were the killer, why would he step forwards? Specifically about Patrick Jones?” I asked Lucy and Jo, which were working on the case with me. I wondered how long would it take for all of us to be working on it.
“Easy, get the blame off him.” Lucy was far from being satisfied that Patrick Jones existed. She had already put an Instagram photo of Frank, a not so flattering one but the closest one which resembled a mug shot or an alien abduction picture as the man himself captioned it. She seemed keen on getting him. I just wanted some more evidence, because of course it was suspicious, but there wasn’t much pointing towards him at this point.
On the night of the third vanishing, I had dreamt of Frank, I was also sleeping late on the couch of the police station. He had a weird glow coming out from his hands and he was stretching his arm towards me, until he could put his arm around me.
“Welcome to my farm.” He said, whispering to my ear and I could see that he had been harvesting elephants all along.
The phone rang with the same static, leaving me alone in the dark to listen to another person vanishing off this earth’s surface.
It was another man, old this time called Jeffrey. He had walked with a candy coloured cane, which was something that would attract the children closer to Christmas. He had no need to book a place if he had lived nearby.
“I was surprised to see him, too.” Frank greeted me. “But I couldn’t turn him down. It’s slow season.”
I didn’t understand how could autumn be slow season for Frank, but I decided to let it slide until I would investigate it myself. I made a note in my notebook to check with Lucy, if it was actually slow season anywhere else or if it was actually him bluffing. I couldn’t tell Frank that he was suspicious. Jo had been saying that he was our man, ever since Lucy had convinced her. I still wanted more evidence, none of which they could find. Both women had even gone to the woods without notifying Frank, only to get blisters on their feet to complain to me later on. They claimed that the woods stretched far longer than they remembered as children and by the end of the day, they never reached the end.
“How far do these woods go, Frank?”
“Endless.” I laughed at his reply.
“Seriously.” I asked again, raising my eyes from the notebook. Frank’s face seems to be unchanged and he just shrugged, playing with his necklace again, the same one from before.
“I’ve never reached the end of them. I wanted to when I was a kid once but I got lost.” I smirked, shaking my head, but writing his words down as evidence. He could be a bit out of it, but he didn’t seem drunk or high or required any psychiatrist evaluation. Not that we had anything against him either.
“I’ve reached the end of them when I was a child.” And I looked down at the notes. Both of us stood in the driveway, next to my police car.
“How come?” Frank asked me cautiously, as if this was something surprising. I just shook my head, but pretended to be understanding because that’s what we ought to be. The inn owner looked at me very suspiciously and curiously. “What did you find?”
“It was right after my father’s death. My dad died when I was young.” I paused. “I saw a cliff, a small river underneath. That’s all. I just wanted to get away. Wasn’t the brightest memory of my life.”
“So… you saw the ending spot, then.” Frank said, his tone still very subtle, as if he would be revealing some grandiose secret which wasn’t supposed to travel so easily, yet it was passed on by word of mouth only.
“Excuse me?” I asked, but then a new car showed up in the driveway. I let Frank go, deciding that a conversation about people vanishing would be bad for the business. I thought of him all the drive back and all the way until morning.
No phone calls woke me up and it made me wonder… what if the vanishing was because we would always pick up the phone? Could the last breath be related to how we reacted as the police? What if in some twisted way we were allowing this? What if this was what whoever wanted?
I drive to Frank first thing in the morning, right after brushing my teeth in the police station. I don’t even decide to get a change of clothes, I would do that later. I check myself in the mirror, as if suddenly recalling a time when I had proper longer hair. I never had it to Frank’s extent, but once I had decided to grow it out, it didn’t last long. Now I just had everything shaved and it was only slightly longer than my usual stubble.
I end up getting locked outside the inn, it’s far too early, so I decide to wait until opening times. I had the thought of picking up detective novels, because I had enjoyed them growing up and maybe somehow it would make my own gears turn in my head, but I had forgotten my idea. I was left with my phone and a newspaper that had been delivered to the front door of the station. I was the early bird getting the news. Nothing exciting was happening to us, besides the vanishings which made it locally on the last page of the national newspaper. I wondered how long would it take until they would send someone else to investigate and do my job for me. I didn’t want that, but I was clueless, unlike Jo and Lucy. Eventually Frank shows up, looking around, probably surprised still that he hadn’t been arrested.
“Sorry, I was meditating in the back. It’s a lovely day.” He smiles at me and I just smile back, because that’s what I’m expected to do. It’s not like I mind seeing him this often but I would prefer going back to minor robberies rather than actual people disappearing, but then I guess every small city will have it’s darkest hour and somehow it was on my shift. “But it’s time for me to open and hope that more people will show up in the inn.”
I did wonder how come he was still getting business and what was the pattern on who was disappearing? Was it just a random sample? Was it just going for the older ones? I bit my lip and watched him, as he unlocked and welcomed me in to the small reception. It was always tidy, but it still had the smell of an old place. I guess some dust would never be removed. Time had surely struck its hand against it.
I couldn’t help but wonder how had his own room looked like. I could only imagine bizarre objects and maybe some crystals. What about an X-Files poster with “I want to believe” on it? Maybe some DVDs scattered? Maybe some books here and there along with notes? I honestly had no idea, I didn’t dare to ask him and I had no warrant to actually raid this entire inn, let alone his personal spaces. I would always go to the rooms, but they had been cleaned. The cars were always gone as well, as if they had decided to drive away, but Frank claimed that the cars would vanish by mornings if he would see someone heading towards the woods.
This time he woke up suddenly to see a silhouette going into the treeline, the faint light from the inn lighting the last way. Nothing made sense and I couldn’t jump to any conclusions.
“I actually went outside, but by the time I had gone down… he was gone.” Frank sighed, shifting from one foot to another as I watched him. He was anxious, but I could see that it was mostly from the fact that his inn could be closed. I was tired, wondering if I should go have another walk towards the woods. That was the only thing and so far we weren’t getting too much funding, so it would just be me walking around for now. “I should’ve screamed something, but I didn’t want to wake up anyone else.”
“Of course.” I say, looking at my notebook which I had taken out and biting the end of the pen. I look up to see Frank looking at it. I wondered if he was looking at my mouth, but I knew that I was just a bit sexually frustrated. I could actually get into the car later and drive to a bigger city nearby, just to do some old school cruising and see who would I last the night with. It had been a while since I’ve had a boyfriend and a while since I had slept with someone else. Maybe it was time. I bit my pen again.
I sigh.
“Say, you like the paranormal.” I say, causing Frank to look at me with further interest. I’m sure if he was older and he had been doing his podcast as I was growing up, I would have enjoyed it much more. I knew that the teenagers would listen to him more often than the adults – they were stories after all. I point towards the tall trees of the forest with my pen. “Are there any stories which I could be missing?”
I knew some local folklore, but of course someone who was more driven by this would know much more. It wasn’t the most famous forest, I was more aware of the satanic cult with their luring in people as sirens. Also there were rumors of a selkie once, which was odd considering that this was completely the wrong country to have one. But then kids would think of anything and that would travel to us through their parents, eventually leading to dead-end police cases. We would find a body eventually or someone who had tripped and needed medical help urgently. I remember how the children would just lay there. We had about two cases of them tripping, falling and having their knees burst open, blood gashing out and they would crawl, thankful that someone had finally found them. I would be glad too, so it was no surprise at all. Eventually they would even forget what had happened to them, with only a scar as a reminder, because being children all scars are quickly earned and forgotten. It’s the adults who remember the brief scars, whether surgical or accidental.
“Oh, plenty.” Frank says plainly. I wait for him to go on, but he looks at me lost. “Oh, right. You want to hear them all?”
“Well, I have to.” I smile at him briefly, before putting a serious yet usual ‘friendly officer’ face. Frank looks down thinking, but I wait for him to start talking. I wish we had more funding, because we are clearly missing some clues and having one single suspect isn’t all that thrilling. There is literally nothing to work with. Not to mention old people vanishing into the woods isn’t exactly that news-worthy or attractive. I mean, everyone would prefer some mass shooting between lovers, that would cause people to debate. What about old people? Nothing. Maybe they all just committed suicide.
Suicide.
Maybe that’s what it was? Frank mentioned something about an end. He opens his mouth, but I interrupt him.
“Say, Frank, you were talking about… some end in the woods.”
“Oh, yes, yes.” Frank says, thankful that I did the job of choosing which brief myth to tell instead of him choosing. I guess it was like making him choose a chocolate piece out of a huge Easter box. I wouldn’t be able to choose either. “Yeah, supposedly there’s an end there.”
“An end?” I ask, confused.
“Yeah. When you want everything to go away… you just walk there supposedly, and find yourself, just before death takes you away. It’s like the end of the world. The living one, that is. But there’s nothing flashy there… Just a cliff and a river. You don’t get asked anything, you just cross the shallow river and only God knows what happens further.”
I look at him, a bit lost and not really wanting to talk with a suspect too much, all of a sudden.
“What do you mean the end?” I ask again. “Like… a parting way?”
“I’ve never seen it, Sheriff. But you have. Maybe you should be the one asking yourself why were you there.”
He caught me off-guard and a couple showed up to check in after I was baffled. In the end, I just drove away. I had the thought of going into the forest and that had been my original idea. But instead I decided to set my mind straight by driving further into another city, which actually had cosy consumerist coffee shops. I didn’t like walking around town on my time off in a police outfit, because you could see everyone straightening their backs and wondering what had brought a police officer to said place, when in reality all I really wanted was a cup of coffee.
I choose the same place I had gone for years now, somewhat of a local Starbucks rip-off, but with decent coffee. It didn’t always look like this – before it was just like a regular cafe, but those days where long gone and a different interior had been in fashion. I drove there through the woods with winding roads, bypassing ancient trees. For once, I had a feeling that someone was watching me as I drove. Maybe it were the trees themselves, maybe they had grown eyes and ears. Maybe they didn’t like the fact that I was cracking them open like an oyster and seeing all the stories they had to tell, thanks to Frank.
I sat there for a good while, browsing on my phone, in hope that someone new would appear, but who was I kidding. I needed to wait until the evening would roll in and then I would go a local mixed club, which had plenty of guys which were into other guys.
I didn’t have a change of clothes on me since I had forgotten to drive back home, just desperate to actually think by myself and in another environment. I ended up buying a quick outfit, nothing too out of the ordinary but I was no leather daddy, so that was a positive for my wallet in the time being. I had lunch and I avoided thinking about the case, calling in late since I spent all night working, I only deserved this day off. But it wasn’t so, I laughed and took the rest of the shift off.
I wanted to refresh and frankly fuck someone. I didn’t like screwing around in our city, simply because I had already slept with whomever I wanted while I was in school and it seemed as if I didn’t want word to travel, I liked keeping it discreet in a way, even if everyone knew. I guess it just came with some gene, we were all modest and didn’t show off much in this part of the world, even if all was alright. It wasn’t a couple of cities, it was the whole country which would hesitate to hold hands and kiss in the public eye.
My history wasn’t that extensive and wasn’t something I thought about a lot. Of course I had exes which I wouldn’t have the guts to unfriend on Facebook, there were guys who I’m sure felt the same way. There was one who even adopted a kid after we broke up but would still like my photos, which made me wonder. But he had moved out of the country a good few years ago, a separation being on mutual terms of neither of us wanting to sustain a long distance relationship. Neither of us would move, so it was over. Maybe those break ups were the worst because the heart would never move on. There was no anger, there was simply a why didn’t life play the right cards for us to stay together?
I spent a few nights just sitting in the dark, smoking and wondering what the hell would’ve happened. I had the urge to write to him, ask him how the kid was but I knew that there was no point in that. In reality we all want to be loved, no matter the distance. No matter even by whom, sometimes. All which was required was someone who we loved back, but that wasn’t what always happened either. How many unrequited love have we had? More than we possibly should, but God liked to see us suffer sometimes. Maybe to make us stronger or so that when we encountered love, it would shine brighter. I didn’t understand the whole concept of pain, ever. I just saw it was something which was given and we couldn’t avoid. But it just didn’t make sense, but I didn’t question it much.
I was dreading telling that I was a sheriff to the man I would spend my night with, so I needed to think of some bogus job, other than saying that I’m a drug dealer on camera, like one kid had and we had to take him in for questioning after it. Turns out he actually was a drug dealer. I changed in a bathroom, realizing that Frank had worn a black shirt recently as well, wondering why had I chosen it, but I didn’t give it much thought. I just went on to start my night.
I arrived far too early, when there were only a few people drinking quietly. I joined the crowd, taking a table. In a way I was lucky, but I really just wanted to get laid somehow. I didn’t have much hope, because sometimes you just go back empty-handed. I wasn’t in the best of moods, boredom was taking over me. I decided to swipe Grindr a few times after downloading it just like any other single gay man. Maybe the drill was that neither of us were special and neither of us was the one to each other.
Maybe we were all swimming like fish, mindlessly, just looking where to get food only we’ve evolved to be bitter and say spiteful comments about someone not looking fuckable enough.
I wondered if I should’ve already asked Frank about his personal life, since that was on the lips of the women I worked with. Maybe there was a point in finding out where had his ex gone. What if he had made him vanish as well? What if he was the fourth victim we weren’t aware of? How many disappearances would there be until we would manage to decide who the killer, kidnapper or whatever was? What if there was no killer, or rather what if the killer wasn’t human? What if Frank was right and it was just God taking them away? Well… God needed assistance. God never killed so cold-bloodedly, he would make sure that someone else would do the dirty job for Him just to welcome them after the pearly gates, all innocent and sincere. But then what else was new? Everyone knew this, some just lied about it or didn’t want to believe it, which was fine by me. Unless it involved a murder.
I told myself that either one shag or a good long wank and I’d be back to work tomorrow. It made me a bit anxious, because if I didn’t realize who the killer was at some point there would be more victims.
The problem was still there when people rolled in. I thought I had seen Frank, but it was just another man and I continued on my next bottle of beer, my first nearly going warm by the time that people started actually strolling in. One girl tried to sit next to me, but I smiled at her, saying that I was waiting for someone else. She took the hint and went back to her group of friends. I made a move not so much later.
The guy who looked like Frank kept eyeing me, but neither of us took the initiative and I decided on someone who looked like a football player, not too attractive and with a shaved body. He seemed nice and made enough jokes. He had approached me, asking if he could get a smoke. I gave him my second to last cigarette and he lit it.
I invited him to sit next to me.
When the football-looking fella leaned in to kiss me, I thought I had seen Frank again, but it was all my imagination. It was just the guy who looked like him. I needed a break and I promised myself that after this case would either stall properly or we would finish it, I would go on holiday somewhere warmer, just because I missed summer with its swimming season.
This fella’s name was Jared, which didn’t suit him at all and I only guessed that perhaps he decided to give me a fake one. He asked me what mine was and I lied that it’s Dennis, since two can play this game. Dennis was an elementary school maths teacher, too. Sometimes I didn’t want to open up and it was okay because Jared didn’t like talking much during sex. We had gone to his tidy house. I was surprised and baffled seeing anything which wasn’t like the bachelor mess which belonged to me. Frank’s inn was so tidy, the same could be said about the police station, and those were the only places where I was a frequent presence in these days.
Sex was good, thankfully. He had a nice cock and we both took turns, something far to democratic for a casual hookup. Post-coital, I kept thinking if I should just open up to Jared, but at the time he had already fallen asleep, leaving me alone to browse through his living room.
Maybe Frank would speak openly post-coital? I didn’t think much of Frank until then but now my brain was filled with post-sex thinking, some shit clarity and despair combined with some desire to actually solve the case. I wasn’t exactly the usual with my desire to go on holiday instead, but then maybe I just watched the same cop TV shows, which would glorify us to no end, like some kind of propaganda. With the current funding, I didn’t understand why any advertisement was needed when we would fall to more budget cuts eventually. On bad days, when I was really bored and some teenage depression would kick back in, I wanted to get laid off but then what would I do? I didn’t have that much saved up and the fact that in this day and age we need to save up is kind of screwed up.
We have no hope for the future.
We’ve all died in our dreams, because none of them were possible to achieve. But as time passed the more I went onto think that I just went with the way life would flow. I felt a bit sucked out of life, but as I stopped looking at Jared’s photos and books I went back to his room, crawled in and anticipated some lazy breakfast I could either get with him or alone, parting ways for good.
But I needed to work.
I went to my place to change and after that I headed to Frank’s again. This time I had gotten a call from Lucy, who was determined and insisted that we should ask Frank about the said boyfriend, while she would wait for all the requests on the three victims to come back from the database. We were digging for something we had no idea about. Because after all, sometimes people would kill just to kill with no pattern and those cases were always the hardest for anyone. But was our killer one just to kill? How would he lure out people who simply acted as if they wanted to go into the woods? Was it some sort of hypnosis?
“Lucy, what if it’s hypnosis,” I had written to her, before getting out of the car to speak to Frank again. She replied almost immediately, but I didn’t check as I needed to get back into some conversation with Frank and maybe that would plant a seed of thought in Lucy’s and Jo’s minds and that would shift some action into our dead beat investigation?
Frank this time was sitting already in the reception, right after breakfast had opened. He kept a close eye on the dining room or well, breakfast room for the first few minutes until some kid walked out with some slingshot. Well, that explained it but it was odd to see a phone and a slingshot in the other. I guess, we just like kids were moving forwards with technology. I saw no other explanation, but I understood Frank’s fear, I wouldn’t want some kid breaking a window with the slingshot or with the phone, for that matter. Maybe it didn’t matter to the kid what he would be able to toss? That was a joke in my mind because of course kids knew, a broken phone meant no games or YouTube or whatever.
“How can I help you, Sheriff?” He nearly catches me off-guard, waving it off that he could possibly call me Andrea, but I keep silent, instead I take out my notebook and a folder. I give a long sigh and take out the photo which has Frank and his boyfriend. We had no idea on his name and who he was. We needed to make sure that he was still alive to be honest, and not missing somewhere else.
Frank sadly looks at the photo, taking it in one hand and putting his other in his jeans’ pocket.
“That’s my ex.” He says.
“I’ll need a full name, Frank.” I reply fast.
“Gary Sullivan. Well, Gareth Sullivan.” The inn owner looks highly uneasy as he says it and I watch him for a while. Did he die a mysterious death too? Did he vanish in the woods as well? I wondered what had really happened to him. I was expecting a death at this rate, which we would have to investigate as well.
“We dated long distance.” Right, people do that. I write that down. I push all my thoughts away. Enough, sulking and enough thinking as well. I thought that sleeping with another man yesterday would jumble my thoughts a bit, but fuck, my demons will always crawl out. “That’s why he’s not here. He never lived here, he would come to visit. I would visit. We broke up about four and a half months ago.”
I keep noting that and scribbling it, as if it could serve some importance. We would have to run his name over on the system, to make sure that he is actually still among living and didn’t vanish in his own city’s woods. I guess hearing that it didn’t work out, made it somehow seem easier for me. I guess we always rejoice from someone else’s misery somehow. I don’t know why humans are so selfish and how come someone so ugly evolved, but then God liked striking with someone else’s ugly hand. I mean, look at the circle of life. We were doing the same thing, only with a different kind of brutality.
Frank waits for me to say something, but only then I realize that I am holding the pause far too long. The ball is in my court and I am clearly stalling the whole game.
How did you even have the guts to start it? How do people do that? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t, it wasn’t like we were in a bar, sitting and talking. We were far from friends, just acquaintances. On top of everything I was working. Frank looks at me, as if he can see right through, as if he can read my thoughts and he feels my pain.
“May I ask, why is this relevant?” He asks, before he can comprehend what he’s just asked. Then he snaps out of it, crossing his arms. Today he is wearing a grass green t-shirt with some ornament patterns.
“We’re just making sure.” I say, putting on a smile. Sometimes I hate how much I have to smile at people who we deem suspicious even if I haven’t reached that point yet myself.
“Making sure…” Frank lets it sink into his head for a while. “Wait, I’m a suspect? Sheriff, these people have been vanishing from my inn! I’m the victim here, if this continues the inn would be closed. Why would I sabotage my only job and my family’s hard work?”
“You’re the last one to see all of them.” It sounds very dry coming from me, but it’s the truth. “Look, you’re not being arrested for anything-”
I nearly say yet, but close my mouth in time.
“We’re just making sure, alright?” I think of a quick lie. “That he’s safe too. What if the people vanishing just have to be connected to the inn?”
Frank didn’t look too convinced and frankly, I couldn’t blame him. After all, no one wants to be accused whether they are guilty or not. I made sure to underline Gareth Sullivan’s name so that I wouldn’t forget at all, even if I tried. My notes were always a mess, so underlining or writing in gaps would always be helpful to understand what I really wanted to look at later. I had to rely on my notes, because the head can’t recall everything and it was crucial not to overlook any minor detail. Sometimes I would even write the moods Frank was in.
Lucy insisted to show up and look through the woods with me, again. After all, maybe we would find a body and then the investigation would escalate. She wanted it to escalate, because according to her more heads would be better, but I just didn’t want the case to go that much further, I didn’t want someone else to do my job for me. I was bored in life and mildly depressed, which was something I kept to myself, but I could surely handle some weirdo killing or hiding people. Maybe there were a few weirdos. I had no idea. We had no clues, besides Frank’s cryptic stories about the woods. The problem was that all the woods had their own stories, since anything which is close to being dark and spooky gets a story to scare kids. Maybe some teenagers, if lucky. But that’s as far as it goes, maybe some old people. But this was clearly not the case, considering that we have had two elders vanish on us. Something was luring them in.
We both went on quietly, Frank watched us head into the depths, I kept looking back until he decided to let us be. Lucy herself didn’t turn around. I wondered why was she so eager to get some new person get to investigate all of this with us. But then she was recently single. Somehow the epidemic spreads to everyone and there’s always more break ups than happy stories, maybe she had a dream of a fellow police officer who would take her off her feet. I knew Lucy for a good while already, even before we worked together. We went to the same school, so she had heard the rumours of me going on my knees before I opened my mouth to speak of it.
I heard about her breakup and she would end up crying outside the station with a cigarette, promising herself to quit smoking, but now that she broke up, she smoked even more. I guess the fact that her boyfriend who left her didn’t like smoking kind of clung onto her. We all find the weirdest of reasons why we weren’t enough. She would over obsess, finding everything wrong with her and dieting more than she must. I didn’t tell her much, I just watched her fade out and bleach her hair even lighter.
Maybe I should’ve told her something?
“How are you doing, Lucy?” I asked her and she looked at me as if burnt. I wasn’t one to start small talk and mostly we just talked about work. And on top of everything right now we were trying to find clues. But the forest seemed to be clean, no traces of anything. Not even footsteps were pressed deeply into the ground.
“I’m alright, I’m alright.” She said, but it looked like she was far from believing it. What if we wouldn’t come back? The thought trickled into my mind, but I decided to give it no mind and after all, as tempting as it might be to kill a cop, it would be too risky and in daylight? Not to mention the fact that it would be dropping the well-desired pattern the killer or kidnapper was creating. So we were safe.
“You sure? You’ve been… sad, recently.” I say, deciding to be friendly and more friends never hurt anyone.
“That’s odd of you to say, Andrea.” She noted, but still smiled, happy of the small gesture. “But thank you. I think everyone at this point has heard about it in the police station.”
Lucy laughs lightly.
“Well… people like to gossip, indeed. But that doesn’t make our work place any more unique than another one. I also sometimes take smoke breaks when you do, sorry that I didn’t participate.” I mention, she waves it off.
“It’s okay, it’s not like you’d enjoy me mopping around.” I shrug, thinking how can I reassure her. But then I’m already making conversation to make sure she’s okay. We keep walking in a straight line, looking around to make sure we don’t see anything too out of the blue for this usual forest. But everything seems to be intact and we keep going. I am dreading the fact that one day, we should be doing this at night with all risks of vanishing forever with the old people along with Patrick Jones.
Patrick Jones.
I felt rude, interrupting our heartfelt conversation to speak of Patrick Jones.
“It’s okay. I should’ve reached out to you sooner.”
“You’re saying it’s like he died, Andrea.” She laughs lightly. “We just broke up… even if we were engaged. It happens. I mean. I’m not sure if it happened to you, but it happens to many.”
I was never engaged, but surely it had to happen on my end someday.
“I’m here if you need to talk about it. I mean, we’ve known each other for a while and I’m always distant from everyone in the station. Might start changing that.”
“Are the vanishings doing things to you, Sheriff?” Lucy looks at me confused and shakes her head. “It’s very kind of you, thank you. But don’t change who you are just because others are vanishing.”
We don’t say dying yet, because we have no idea what is even going on.
“Death and such things are unavoidable.” She stops speaking to think for a while. “But at the same time these things give perspective on how short life is and what we really need, what we lack and what could we do to improve ourselves and our lives. By all means, if listening to an old classmate and co-worker is something you want, go ahead.”
She smiles at me and I shrug, putting my hands in my pockets.
“Lucy, I just want to make sure you’re alright.”
“Alright, alright. You asked for it.” I feel like this is the part where I start regretting. But maybe I shouldn’t be regretting, because after all, she is my co-worker and I should try to bond with people a bit more rather than staying a lone wolf for the rest of my life. And no, fucking strangers didn’t count at all.
“I don’t think we ever forget our exes, we just learn to live without thinking of them.” I say to Lucy, before she says anything, who I didn’t expect to look at me surprised, instead I see that my advice will most likely go through her, because when it comes to break ups there’s only so much that other people can do. Mostly it’s between us and the void the other person left. I wasn’t sure why they had broken up, I always imagine loud break ups, maybe because they’re the most common and when you think you’ve heard the messiest, someone else tops it. Of course I’ve had both kinds, there were even ones which I didn’t care about and just wanted to be away from. It always depends what kind of person I’m leaving behind and how we had changed each other.
As we walked, the chillier it would get. Suddenly, we both stopped talking, our legs taking us much further. I had been to these woods before, the more I walked the more I would think of how the trees had grown, what had changed them over time, how their roots were either sticking out or going desperately deep, trying to hold on, as if they were humans, clinging to some meaning of life.
There was another time when I actually went to these woods. I just biked here and kept going, leaving the bike on the road, chaining it to a tree, knowing that I damn well wouldn’t be able to go through on wheels with these roots poking out of everywhere.
That was the time I had seen the river.
I didn’t want to go on. It was a while after my dad had died, I had no solace in family who wouldn’t talk about him or try to make things easier, I just felt zoned out as a scene in a movie, where people would move at a fast rate, but somehow time stopped only for me to stare blankly at a spot. I had no idea what I was going to do now, I was just as lonely as I am now, but when you’re younger it stings worse. Back then I wasn’t used to it. I had a small amount of friends and those you make in school are shallow and not ones you would tell secrets over smoking. Anyone who does, is a liar or desperate in my eyes. Not all of them, at least. I happened to have no one at the time. I just wanted to go out. I wanted to get lost. I wanted to somehow end it all.
I had no idea where life would be heading and I reached the point where I didn’t care. It pains me to think of it, because I don’t think I had the answers to all the questions I would’ve asked if I met future me back then. I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself.
Whenever I would get asked briefly, I would just get stared at or I would just feel worse by sharing. I didn’t like reaching out, it just made everything worse and worse. Frankly, just existing made everything worse. I had no idea that I wanted to be a cop, my hobbies were draining me and I would just smoke as much as I could, watch the streets, watch people argue as I would walk, watch everything sort of resolve without me. I was useless, I interacted with no one and what was the point of me existing even? What was the point if I impacted nothing and my dad was gone? What was the point of lying to everyone or if I spilled I would get bad?
There was a point, I realized. I had nothing to do.
That’s why I wanted my life gone, because others had their intact or weren’t holding themselves by paper sheets. Well, I was tired of doing that, I just wanted myself gone. I had no guts to self-harm, because I would feel guilty over the scars and it wouldn’t change much. Maybe make me worse, but it’s not exactly that I deserved it. I wasn’t a bad person, I just wanted myself gone. I was nothing, so why would I punish air?
Lucy kept silent, she knew nothing of this and by looking at her, I saw that something was stirring inside her too. Maybe Frank was right and the place was the one which would open to suicidal people and just like a graveyard, the place felt chilly and death-like.
Wanting to commit suicide was something which threaded through every single lie and some just hid it better than others, because they would judge themselves for it. That’s why we lie so often. I kept on walking, wondering if we would reach the spot. But instead it just got colder and Lucy never spoke. We walked for a good while, silently observing the scene unravelling in front of us. The woods were old and green still. Autumn had come, but it didn’t manage to shake off all the leaves due to the hot weather, which only recently kissed us goodbye and the cold weather was so sudden and unusual.
Lucy and me agreed to go back, both of us drained and not exchanging any words. Frank was outside, smoking as we walked past. He waved at us and that was it. I held my gaze on him, wanting to ask him further questions.
“Lucy, I’m going to ask some more questions.” I told her and she eyed Frank suspiciously, just like she would any other subject or any other small criminal we would catch and put in the slammer.
Frank just watched me quietly and I waited for Lucy to start her car and leave. Then, I looked at the inn owner into his dark eyes. They reminded me of the cold I had faced, because I was reaching nightfall when I saw the river.
I just sat there for a while, out of cigarettes and I had wanted to cross the river at all costs.
I didn’t.
His eyes were the colour of twilight in a way.
I searched my pockets for my pack of cigarettes, but Frank offered me one from his.
I looked up at him. He couldn’t be death. I hadn’t seen him. I lit my cigarette with his lighter, too many questions rising in my mind and knowing that life keeps going for no reason and just like the rolling of dice and relying of that made no sense, that was the same with life, I had decided. That’s why I wanted to take my life, because it held no meaning and it was driving me crazy.
“What did you see there? You and the other cop?” Frank asks me suddenly and I jerk at the sudden question.
“Me and Lucy?” I don’t know why I say her name out loud, but I do, as if giving it to Frank for some safe keeping just in case the monsters come along.
“Yeah.” He simply replies.
“Nothing.” I shake my head and a small smile breaks on his lips. He can’t be death. Death surely exists, but I don’t think that it does in some mythological way that we think, but more of a last second before we die and there is no mercy or interaction for that matter. I don’t think it happens in that way and even then… would that mean that death as an entity exists?
Or what if death just left us in the way God has?
I didn’t know what to even reply to that thought of mine.
“Well… you don’t find anything unless you actively go looking for something.” Frank says cryptically and I just watch him, hoping that his face would give out any sort of clue, but nothing at all.
“Looking for what?” I ask him and he gives a sad smile.
“You know.” He says and I look at his hair, just not to look at him in the eyes. “Maybe if you think about why you were there… you would understand. If you open your heart to the reality, really. But you can always find a killer, too.”
I looked at him confused.
“Because… they’re not just vanishing by themselves and killing off my business. God bless that the articles don’t scream the address in bold letters on the front page. That’s the only thing saving my business.”
The problem is that ever since me and Lucy entered the forest, I felt light-headed and even replying to Frank is awful. I feel like I am suddenly in a vacuum, maybe that I’m a astronaut in space, floating, my cord long torn and I am sinking into the void, static noise in my ears.
Maybe we were too close? Is this all because we’re being fed Frank’s stories? Is this what is happening to the mind? Is he really behind all of this? What if he is just toying with us and he just happened to come across us in his toy box.
“You… you know something I don’t.” I manage to squeeze out of myself, as I neglect my cigarette, but Frank keeps smoking, watching me concerned and amused at the same time. He’s toying with us. He knows something we don’t.
“You know everything, Sheriff.” He keeps saying these things, but he’s clearly toying-
Frank clearly knows something.
I finally take a drag of the half finished cigarette, which had burned to this state without me touching it twice. I should’ve taken better care of it. But then… I just watch Frank, I won’t get him to speak by the looks of it. How would I? What would get a man to properly talk and confess everything he had known about a murder or vanishing case? My mind was just as blank as ever and the cigarette smoke was giving my thoughts a rather harsher haze to stay within.
“Back there…” I point towards the forest and Frank follows my hand. “I couldn’t even speak properly with my colleague. We just both went silent. Neither did we find anything.”
Frank smiles a bit eerily. Maybe he is the one luring everyone in and all these stories are all fake because after all, why wouldn’t one pretend that the supernatural is real in order to avoid a crime?
“First of all… Sheriff, you wouldn’t speak during a funeral, would you? So why would a place of ending be any different? Sometimes, they say that it quiets you… in order to remain the quiet. It’s like a teacher catching students speaking.” He’s making me uncomfortable and I can’t look away, his hair and his whole attire seems grimmer. But we’ve got no evidence against him. Where would things go from now on? It’s not like we can arrest him. It’s not like we can prove anything either. “And second, sometimes you’re not invited to the funeral.”
I have this gut feeling that he is done talking for today. But what would the point be to continue if he is actually done for today? He’s feeding me teaspoons of information about the place, but nothing really helps me to find the murderer. I look at him again, as I expect some gust of wind to blow his hair, but it’s not windy at all and it’s still light.
“I’ll rent a room.” I regret saying that as soon as it escapes my mouth, but Frank just shakes his head.
“You and me both know… that it’s useless. It’s not the right time, Sheriff.” Frank shifts from one foot to another and I look down.
Then I get the courage and look him back into his eyes. Frank doesn’t look away either.
“I’d like a room, please.” Is it because he has no one to kill tonight? What if he turns into a werewolf over night? Is that what he’s been doing? Who knows. Surely, not me. At least I’m not horny today, because bringing over some one time shag to just sit the whole night, watching outside from a window and shushing the fella is far from sexy and romantic, not to mention that it could escalate and someone might actually vanish.
Maybe Lucy is right and he’s engulfed in this all along, but we will have to wait and see. Maybe by putting myself in his trap was far from the right choice for me to make, but there was no turning back. If he was the killer, or the kidnapper, then I shouldn’t be hesitating at all with him.
“Just you?” Frank asks and turns around to the door. I follow him inside, as he gets behind the counter, all the old keys hanging behind him and I see that there’s at least three people booked in already and from what I know, he usually gets quite a few who stop for the night as a stopover in their adventures through the country.
“Yeah. Just me.” I wonder if he takes it as me being completely single, which is the case, or if he´s aware that I wouldn’t want any of my family, if I had one, to be involved in something particularly dangerous.
“Alright. I guess you’ll be a frequent visitor here then, Sheriff.” Frank smiles as he takes out his laptop and starts preparing the check-in. Soon enough he asks me to pay for the single room I would be renting for the night. I pay out of my own money, not really bothering to use the allowance for work since we were already under quite a few budget cuts and the more time stretched the more irritated I was starting to get, because we had nothing. I didn’t dare to tell Frank that I wanted to go into the woods in the night. That was my intention all along. Maybe I would be invited to the funeral this time, maybe I would get a glimpse and the woods would open up for me.
I look at him, and he’s not exactly lying. With the way the investigation is going, I can’t blame myself or anyone for grasping at straws. There is simply nothing going on. We’ve got nothing besides three disappearances and me constantly trying to find the site of a vanishing. I haven’t even properly looked into the notes Lucy would give me every morning. I would glance through and ask her if there was anything I should know, to which she would shrug.
Maybe tonight was the right night to glance all over them. I had them in my car anyway, I would pretend to be responsible and take them with me. To never glance over, apparently.
“Where’s a good place to eat nearby?” I ask him, considering that I shouldn’t be too far off the suspicious site. I was also sure that he knew a place which I wasn’t aware of too well. After all, he’s the one who lived the closest to wherever the best restaurant in this area was.
“There’s a good place which only delivers and I usually order from them when I’m feeling lazy to cook. Then we can both eat, if you’d like. I wouldn’t mind some company and I’m sure you have more questions up your sleeve.” Frank says, smiling at me. I just nod, accepting his offer without saying much. But the truth was that I actually didn’t have many questions, I had none for the time being. I just knew that I needed to ask him something, anything. But then I wasn’t bad at thinking of questions out of the blue, because sometimes people would just slip on the simplest ones. The idea was just to keep a suspect talking until they would trip on their own lies. It’s odd to see Frank change moods from looking like an eerie serial killer to someone absolutely normal, and who wouldn’t mind some company.
He doesn’t go out too often by the looks of it, because then he would have to close the inn down. I’ve mostly seen him outside at night, when the check in hours are over. I’ve seen him on the streets whenever there is a festival, buying a bunch of trinkets, which I am sure he uses in his stories or just to inspire himself. I wondered if he would venture at night into the woods for inspiration for all of his bizarre stories of alien abductions and meat hungry werewolves. Maybe he would wear the trinkets as well, considered that he had some eye for small items to wear.
Sometimes I knew that he would close the inn, during the laziest hours of the day and I would see him as well, in our city, since everyone kind of knew everyone in a way or another.
Maybe it’s best that I’m ordering food, but then he could still put some hallucinogens in it, just for me to have a funk-filled night. Maybe that was his plan all along? Because once he asks if I want plates for my food, he could easily slip something in. Or he could ask the cook, if they are both some witch friends or whatever.
I decide to simply tell Lucy as soon as I can, which would be now. I take the phone out, as Frank starts looking around his desk for the menu of the place he had recommended so highly. I wonder about the prices, as I text Lucy of my plans for tonight. She replies rather fast, telling me to be safe and that she is still feeling a bit shaken from our walk earlier. I text her back, telling her to take care of herself and take a bath or something. But knowing Lucy, she will hang out with her friends and mop around the break up all over again. I’m sure we would all be like that if we had friends which would listen to us for an eternity.
I just kept it to myself.
A while later, Lucy texts me back that there were news on Frank’s boyfriend, that he was alive and well. He was checked upon and was confused on why would anyone like Frank ever be under investigation. It was nice to hear, considering that Lucy didn’t get something along the lines of ‘please put my asshole ex behind bars’. Maybe their break up wasn’t as tragic and hurtful as I had imagined. Maybe some people just break up on good terms as well, something civil. Just like I had. Maybe I wasn’t the only one suffering from something like it.
“What kind of place is it? What do they serve?” I ask Frank, just as he comes back from the backroom, which I only guess has a fridge with a magnet which holds the menu. He passes it to me and I see a bunch of pizzas, burgers and steaks. Anything you could possibly want. I keep flicking through the pages before settling for a pizza with pineapple, probably to the dismay of Frank, but he doesn’t comment much and takes the menu back for himself. He decides on a different pizza, with far more toppings than are offered. I guess being a costumer which they know has its advantages.
“If you want more toppings, just tell me.” He then pauses for a bit. “Aren’t you Italian though? What’s with the pineapple?”
“I guess I just like disappointing my relatives on my food choices. I just enjoy it.” I shrug.
“Fair enough.” Frank says and takes out his landline to call. We both wait for the restaurant to pick up, which takes a while, I’m guessing because other lazy people would be calling up, not just me and the inn owner. I wonder how many lonely sit-ins does he have. When was the last time he had anyone over to eat with? I could ask myself the same question, discarding all which were one night stands or date which were literally made to just fuck and discard, because we just didn’t click other than sexually or didn’t want anything beyond that. But even then, it’s been a while since I was on a date or ate out with someone. Usually, it’s just me alone after work.
I don’t even know how long it’s been, I’m not one to cling to dates. When I was a child, I would do that but then the numbers would get twist and turned, forgotten. It was better to forget even the happiest of memories, because as time passes, the desire to forget and shred the entire past is higher than the will to live. I never understood why was I so unhappy with my past, it just felt like a part of me. It felt that everything was some sort of mistake, which I would never repeat again. I never understood the concept where you relive your life all over and over again. I would never make the same choices, even with the guy I had loved and let go. I think I would have chosen a different path, avoid him all together, because what’s the point if something can’t work out? Maybe that’s why I feel so miserable, because no matter what I do, I end up regretting everything and standing in the shower far too long, waiting for my skin to vanish from me and for myself to become one with the water. Which of course, never happens.
I look at Frank, wondering if he would be a person I would have opened to, whether I would have given the chance and thrown away all of the circumstances. I should never open up to someone who might be a potential serial killer with a possible cop kill in sight. What if the fact that other people talked to him was exactly the reason that they vanished or were chosen?
What if he was death after all? What if he was the last balance people found before wandering off to the woods to be never found again?
Why do we remember every single person we’ve loved and how to find them? I surely kept track, even if I had vanished from other’s but I’m sure that if some asked around, they would’ve been able to find me even if I had tried to close the tightest locks. I wondered why some were so long gone while other’s weren’t in my mind. Because we all love the same. Was it because we loved some less than the others? Was there an actual measurement of how much love were we giving? So when we say I love you, how much do we really mean?
How much do we lose on the way?
I looked at Frank very silently, nearly watching him, wondering how deep did the love run in his blood. How much had he loved? Could we measure other people’s love against our own? Or was it a reckless thing to do?
“What are you thinking about?” Frank asks me suddenly, as he puts the phone down, right after finishing the order. I ended up staring at him, thinking of love while watching him order a pizza and whatever he ordered. I leaned against the reception desk, Frank looking back at me. Waiting for a reply.
I always lie. I don’t like opening up to people and this was no different. I shouldn’t even be opening my mouth, but then being vulnerable sometimes helps others to open up. But sometimes people can just lie about their own vulnerability and you’ll be left wondering why on earth have you ever shared.
But then two can play any game, as long as one provides the playing board.
“Love.” I say, trying not to sound too surprised. Frank looks at me a bit lost, maybe he’s thinking that I am trying to find out even more about his boyfriend, which is not the case. I think he’s a dead and cold end. No need. But then, what would love give me? If he was targeting people, they were old. But then who didn’t dream of hearing someone else’s love story unfold in front of them like a book, unravel. Maybe that’s why he was targeting them and the younger fella was just a distraction to lead us off the main track.
“Love?” He asks me, a small smile starting to play on his lips, curious where the hell would all of this lead. But I guess, him being a writer, why would he refuse a conversation about such a strong emotion and which would some argue held the meaning of life or the only anchor to stay alive? After all, what was it that I had to say? “And what do you have to say about love?”
It doesn’t sound rude in any way, just curious, like waking up and remembering all of life’s puzzle coming together and building you in those brief seconds.
I do think of everything I’ve thought of until now. We don’t move an inch, the desk diving us slightly.
Frank still looks startled, not sure what to even expect and I’m not even sure where I am even heading with it.
“Have you ever wondered where home is? It’s supposed to be with someone you love and somehow, I never felt that. I’ve loved and I’ve had a home, but never those two combined.” I keep talking and I wonder, how come I’m saying things which I haven’t even properly thought of. I would always wonder no matter how much I would travel on the holidays, when would I find myself and where would home be. It was never someone I would come home to. Of course, I had thought of my ex and as the days would go, I would use his name less and less, to make sure that soon enough I would forget someone who I was never supposed to be with even if it was the subtlest break up ever known to mankind. I would have nights when I would want to ask him how is he doing, on my good days, just to share and I never wanted him to know how bad I would be on my suicidal nights, maybe that’s why he wasn’t the one.
“Home is… the inn. The forest around it.” Frank says suddenly. “It’s the nearby cities, the small cafes, the good delivery food, the customers coming in for a night or for a whole week, escaping. It’s seeing them find some purpose.”
He looks at me directly into my eyes.
“You just haven’t found yours. Love is just a distraction. Sometimes, you’ll manage to pluck out the petals to expose the centre of the flower, to reveal yourself with love, but sometimes even the lonelinest people will become themselves alone. Not everyone has a pair or a couple.” The inn owner notes and I just nod. But I’ve felt even worse alone and I’ve always felt better even with a one night stand to ease up after a long day. It’s just been hard, because I haven’t been one to open to anyone at all recently. I just took my time after the break up and took even more to wail in solitude for no exact reason. “Love just makes us live.”
I look at him, surprised and wondering how obvious sometimes I seem. I always hid my own feelings from myself, my desire to just vanish sometimes it comes to me when I’m driving and I have to stop and pull over for a smoke, sometimes it happens during stress, when everyone is fighting in the family, since everyone has their own mysteries, swept under the rug.
It wasn’t easy falling apart with everyone and growing up was far from easy, sweeping away all the guilt of doing every action which would be judged by every parent.
When it was me and my mom only, it became much harder. It felt like the ghost of dad was always hanging upon us. I remember when we were told in class that divorce is harder than death, because there’s betrayal and I disagreed, saying that death was worse, because no matter what I’ll do I’ll never see my dad again. In the first years and for a good while I would go to visit his grave and any mentions of cancer still cause me to shudder, wondering what the hell is keeping humanity from discovering a cure. On the darkest of nights I would think that it was just a way of humanity being kept at bay, because if we discover all cures then we would just be overpopulated. Sometimes it felt like we were all played. We all didn’t matter. We were all characters in a Kafka novel, for sure. No one knew what we were accused of and why were we all sentenced to death and what the hell was trimming our lives. For all we knew, maybe we were all immortal and we’ve just been in this spiral for since the oldest could recall.
Mom shrivelled up and said gingerly that I resembled too much of him, which caused her to be bitter, remarrying. We weren’t close by the end of the day. Coming out was hard for her too, bombared with the idea that I would never pass my genes, even if I had told her that there were plenty of ways for gay men to reproduce including a possible trans male partner. But along with odd concepts of death which made no sense, we were bombared with the idea that we need to die and reproduce. But then was that really the point of life?
I once had a teacher, who would say that he didn’t bite the marriage way of life, having children and everything was boring. I always wondered if he was gay, never mentioning women and speaking fondly of a teacher he once had in university. He seemed like when I would softly mention a guy to my mother growing up. We are all shrouded in shame of the guys we like. I always remember how other gya men subtly talk about their crushes in the past, how they would just watch them idly never making a move, because you can never know what will really happen if you do a move. Now, it felt a bit easier with gay bars and apps, but was it really that much easier? We were now on a cult of sex and hooking up, but then it’s always been like that. Sex was easy to achieve. I remembered hearing from a very odd fella, how you go to a bush and you’ll find sex there, while when it came to love it was far more different.
It was odd how many of us were actually lonely, yet we still slept with each other at an alarmingly high rate, prefering sex to masturbation and by the end of the day finding love. We would discard anyone as easily as someone straight would break up their ten year old marriage. It always amused me, the amounts of divorce. People weren’t willing to work out their problems and it wasn’t just straight people, it was everyone. We were all on the search for that completely ideal person, pissed off when the partner would act differently and by the end of the day we would fall in love with the idea of a person, rather than falling in love with the flaws and what made our partner human.
I didn’t know why we had all gone so wrong. We were at fault for so many things and in the hardest of nights and days, I would always wonder what the hell even kept me alive. That’s why I had ridden into the woods to get that damn lost. But I didn’t want to speak to Frank of my idea to get lost and somehow die, even if I knew that Frank probably knew it. I didn’t want to be that vulnerable. I had told that to my ex once, laying on his lap, my hair a bit longer, and he would just run his fingers through my hair, listening, how I had wanted to leave everything because it seemed like never knowing anything again seemed like the perfect solution.
My mind drifts far too often and I realize that I am leaving Frank all confused. I don’t really know how to catch up, my mind wandering into all possible directions. I also am starting to feel tired, an emotion which seems to always go hand in hand with me, no matter how much coffee I indulge in. Then what would home be?
“What is home for you, then? Just a location?” I double ask Frank and he just nods, fiddling with the menu in his hands, possibly unaware of the fact that such a conevrsaton could even take place with me. It is a rather weird conversation to have with a stranger and maybe I am achievining the right thing by making him uncomfortable, but then I should be making him open up to me somehow instead.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll find peace alone.” I pipe up and Frank shakes his head now, folding the menu into a square, probably wondering if he can make it into some origami shape, since I am sure they will bring in a new menu with the food.
“That’s not really what I meant. I just said that you might end up, finding it so.” The inn owner says and I look around, wondering if I look around, I will find a piece of home myself, some key in why is this home for Frank. “I think I just have had home for so long, that I don’t necessarily need someone to show me it’s existence.”
He seems to have stopped from saying something, so I just motion for him to go on. He folds the menu further into a triangle now, doing a few more moves and I’m guessing it will be some animal or maybe even a butterfly, since that is the only one I can actually do myself. Once, I knew how to make a bunny, they turned out cute but that was all they ever were, paper rabbits which meant nothing even to me. My mom was too sad to care.
“You wandered into the forest… Sheriff.” I see that he wanted to address me by my name, but dropped it last minute and I decide not to push into familiarities just now. It would be far too obvious that I am trying to squeeze out some information out of him. “People don’t usually come back.”
“Why not?” I ask all innocent and Frank looks up at me, his dark eyes reflecting his even grimmer thoughts. I can see every night pass with its dull lit stars.
“Because people go there to end their lives, Sheriff.” Frank says and I can feel both of us tense up, myself specifically pale up, because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hide this secret away from the inn owner, since he is very well aware of what goes on there. “Something made you change your mind. That’s rare. Usually, people just accept their fate and go further. They don’t want anything to do with it.”
He’s doing a crane. I see it clearly now, as the does the last folds and puts it in front of me. Only I had no dream and cranes never saved the poor girl with cancer.
“I’d say ask yourself what stopped you, if you want to find out yourself more properly.” Usually we would end our conversations at such points, but instead we are glued together with the dinner. It’s odd how slow our conversations would go, all the evidence as well, but instead now we’re stuck with the awkaardmess and thinking ahead with each other in the room, or in this case standing oppsoite each other.
“I think that’s something only you know and you don’t have to share it.” Frank says softly and gives out a very small smile, poking the crane towards me. I grab it to inspect it between my hands. It’s rather well made with all the colours from the pizzas, steaks and drinks. There’s even some cocktails here and there.
“No, it’s fine.” I say, it’s been years and years. I’ve only spoken about it to my ex. “I just was sad and then… I wodnered what if there was actually someone there for me and that had been it. That was the whole sudden pull back, I just stood there in front of the river, dead curious to cross it… But then I kept thinking… what would the point be then? It’s not like the river would go elsewhere. I would always be able to find it, if I want to. But I would never be able to find it, if I found whomever was made for me and that seemed okay.”
“So you do know the purpose of the river, Andrea.” Frank says shifting all of a sudden to my name and I just stare back at him, taken back. “Why are you investigating then?”
Frank feels like a gateway to hell, sometimes. He feels like he knows the meaning of life, he feels like he holds the earth between his fingers, doing tricks in a circus ring of infinity.
“Because people are vanishing and mine and your’s belief in the end of life isn’t cutting it.” I say. “We live ín the real world, not some Greek mythology.”
Frank smirks and takes the crane gently from my hands.
“You won’t find much, Sheriff.” He goes back to addressing me by my title and I wonder what had I said. But then, I was no fool. Maybe he was all behind this after all, maybe he had seen me at the river or he was just pulling my strings because I had opened up to him. Who knew what the hell even was on the inn owner’s mind. “You should look in yourself… if you want to know what really happens to everyone. Or… I don’t even know.”
That’s when we hear a knock on the reception and we are greeted with the food we had ordered earlier, since the delivery place isn’t so far away.
We start off by quietly moving to the breakfast area, Frank puts up a sign on the door which says to knock louder. I’m guessing he would rather not lose a customer than let the food go cold. There is nothing wrong with that, and maybe if I was an inn owner I would do the same thing. I feel behind on so many things in life. If I didn’t have to work I would be lost and that’s the thing, I still do my work, besides the days when I skip because I can’t handle everything. But it’s not like my mood manages to kill off everything.
Frank offers me some red wine and I take it, not being that fond of it, but alcohol is alcohol. I shouldn’t be drinking on the job, but as long as it would ease him this would make my job easier. I hold my alcohol enough to remember this next morning though, even if my mind can trail off. I have never done anything I’ve regretted while drunk. Frank serves everything and denies my offer to help, saying that he is the inn owner after all and I’m the guest of honor. We start eating quietly and I just watch him from the corner of my eye, Frank drinking far more wine than I do, possibly because he enjoys it more too. I always preferred spirits and cocktails in bars. He looks a bit anxious from the silence, but then all of our conversations end with some conclusion and that’s where they lead by the end of the day. I keep looking around discreetly at the neatly arranged tables and the smell of an old inn engulfing everything along with the wooden interioirs. There’s even china hanging on one of the walls, which I can see his mother arranging in her oldest age, before she had passed away. The rugs beneath us are old but somehow kept in good condition as well as the new windows, installed just to keep the cold out. The lights could be chandeliers to make it fancier since that seems to be a general consensus, but they’re not.
“Why not leave the dead to be dead?” Frank asks suddenly, drinking from the wine glass. I just put my finger on the base of it, not exactly sure what should I be reply and neither had we toasted, we just delved into our food which shouldn’t even be drank with wine under most circumstances. I guess Frank just wanted an excuse. He then realizes his bizarre question to an officer. “You know what happened to them. You’ve seen it when you went there. You know that people just don’t come back from the dead-”
“We have to punish anyone who takes out a life. It could be assisted suicide, if to believe your theory.” I say and I drink the wine. It doesn’t feel cheap, but neither does it excite me. Frank just moves his head from side to side, his hair moving with him. I watch his dark curls, wondering suddenly how soft they are. I always wonder how does a person feel, how does it feel to trace my fingers on their cheeks, pulling their hair and see how their stubble stings if pressed harshly against the tip of the fingers. “You’re forgetting that I’m a cop-”
“I’m not.” Frank interrupts me. “I just think that some things are better left alone, and I’m not saying this to be suspicious. There are numerous ways to go out of life, to stop burning on this side and playing too close with the wind blowing out candles is never a wise idea.”
We’re both now close to finishing our food, since we spent the dinner just staring at each other instead of talking, but we’ve still got a fair amount of wine left from the bottle. Frank takes it in his hands.
“We can finish it off, if you’d like.” He offers and I just nod, wondering what the hell can I even get out of him at this point or if I just want to get drunk by myself. But then I wouldn’t be drunk by myself, I would have a mate. Frank then goes back and changes the sign to closed. I guess he’s decided that getting shit-faced is far too good for the business, of course. Frank offers now to go upstairs to his room. I feel a bit taken back, but I take his offer. We go upstairs on the narrow stairs with all of the family photos dating to when photography was probably first invented to photos which look they have been taken last week with Frank standing in front of the inn. I don’t see any men next to Frank, but there is one with his father. On the second floor his room opens up to me, just like I had expected it.
It has a fair amount of random trinkets lying around and even some crystals here and there on the bookshelves. The bed is neatly made and the whole room has an aura of a living in hotel. Frank invites me to sit with him on an arm chair next to the identical one he had taken. Both facing a huge window, which looks out to the forest, where I can only guess is where he sees the last glimpse of the disappearing people. I sit besides him.
Frank had managed to carry his glass, as I followed with my own. I’m guessing he would clean up later, but then there wasn’t enough guests today and the breakfast room was locked sound as well. He refilled both glasses and it was the first time we clinked, looking outside into the forest.
“Sometimes people are supposed to come back… but they don’t. You’re the only person I know who actually looked at the other side and decided to come back.” Frank pauses. “What did you see?”
“A river.” I try not to lie too much. The inn owner’s dark eyes fixate on me.
“Of course it doesn’t mean that everyone who thinks of suicide never comes back. Just that you’re the only one I can think of who returned from these woods,” Frank says and I just try to avoid his curious gaze. I should be investigating him further rather than believing in fairy tales which surround the property. But the problem is that there is nothing, rather than Lucy’s theory that Frank is somehow all behind this and I guess you can say that I am investigating him after all. “You can view it as being special if you’d like, or just someone else who changed their mind last minute.”
I can’t exactly read his expression. I just drink a bit more from my wine glass, not hiding the fact that I am still fascinated by his room. Frank only smiles at my curiosity. Mine is either a mess, because I happen not to care what the hell is happening to it or I end up cleaning it far too much, allowing some pristine neatness to show that no one really enjoys living here. I don’t even like people being over at my house because it feels like they are invading my space. I’ve always enjoyed having a part of me which I don’t allow other people to see, that’s why I get so curious seeing other people’s rooms and specifically when I travel and I see the curtains pulled back, I always make sure to look inside, to see who is arguing, who is watching telly and seeing some artificial way of how someone is living, because I honestly have no idea what is really going on.
“You’re quite quiet, when you’re not questioning.” Frank notes and I just nod, taking another sip, still not exactly feeling the fog of the alcohol. He could’ve spiked it as well, but I don’t feel anything. I can’t help but smile, seeing him choose the wine, having no idea with whom he would be sharing it or maybe he has some secret powers where he feels what will happen. At this point I would be far from surprised. “You a quiet person, then?”
The question strikes me as somewhat flirtatious and I haven’t really thought of anything in such a light. I just look back at him quizzically, but he pretends that it’s the most normal question in the world. After all, you’re bound to have some tension between two men who enjoy the company of other men. I don’t know if he’s gay, but he’s had a boyfriend prior, so that would make him interested.
“I guess.” I say quietly and swirl the wine in my glass, looking at it, not sure where would all of this be even going. If it was some sort of hooking up venture, I would be speaking up more and making moves. But I am still at work.
“You wanted to speak about love…” I see that Frank doesn’t know whether to address me by my name or not, so he just leaves it open-ended, to which I am thankful, because I don’t even know where this is going. But then Frank could just be making moves just to win time, just to win confidence, because you can’t really unsuck a dick. It’ll be too awkward to accuse someone who I’ve slept with, so I just sit on the edge of the chair, watching the forest outside with autumn slowly gracing it with it’s reds and oranges. The weather still holds on, even if it’s started to get colder inside than it has been outside, since you don’t exactly wear a jacket inside unless it’s completely necessarily.
“Do you think love is enough to make someone turn back?” I ask suddenly, but that doesn’t exactly take Frank by any surprise. Sometimes talking to the inn owner, feels like talking to a confessional where he knows what else would I be saying and what sins I have committed. Who knows. It’s all terribly anxious, because he could be confessing something and I would just let it go past me, because he is just so eerie and bizarre.
“Are you asking me if that’s the reason the others didn’t turn back? If love was not enough or if love was something they didn’t have?” Frank makes sure to clarify and I shrug my shoulders, before I even calculate my response. The inn owner thinks about it for a while. “Sometimes love isn’t enough. There’s a reason people take breaks or don’t spend time together all the time, so that we don’t take everything for granted, so that we can miss and value the time together. But sometimes, love really isn’t enough if our mind is set on ending it all. I guess… you’d know a bit of that.”
Talking to Frank feels like talking a therapist somehow. It feels like he will know everything that I have to say, just by looking at me and asking me the questions which I have never thought of the answer to myself. Maybe he somehow was a therapist in a past life, if he believes in past lives that is. I wonder if he really does or if there is something else he is simply not telling us.
“Think about it, even when it’s not suicide, people die. Love can’t protect all of us… so why would it when it comes to suicide as well?” Frank is asking relevant questions somehow and I have no answers to them, besides the fact that the wine is slowly starting to fog up my mind and he keeps pouring us more. I’m guessing his goal is to finish the whole damn bottle of white wine.
“But then… nothing really protects us.” I say suddenly and Frank just nods to my words.
“Exactly. Nothing protects us, it’s not even that we are alone, because that’s a big lie. We’re alone if we want to be alone. We just aren’t protected whether we like it or not.”
“That’s awfully depressing.” I note.
“That’s life. It gets taken away from us, even if we decide to take it ourselves from us.”
5
I can’t stop looking at Frank as if he is at the entrance of the pearly gates. I don’t really understand how come he knows so much and so little at the same time. But then wouldn’t that be all the answers we would be given? I don’t even notice that we are close to the ending of the bottle, Frank drinking far more than I am. I wonder how many more does he have stashed and how often does he open them.
I can’t deny that he’s attractive, but nothing goes beyond that. Instead he makes me think that I am lost in a crowd, in some brief train connection, but it’s okay if I miss the current train because there are plenty incoming. It’s not like time is that dependant on me for once in a while. I don’t have to be at the arrival location right away. He looks back at me in pure silence, and I’m fully aware that we are staring each other down. Usually I would wink if it were at a bar, but instead it’s just us and we are aware of each other’s presence. There is no movement of figures and there is no emptying the wardrobe. Once, I went on and I saw online how a couple of friends of mine had divorced, how one had emptied the closet, probably sat down and took the photo, announcing that a lengthy doomed relationship was over. I wondered if I would ever be one to do it. I wondered if I would ever see that happen with my ex and if he would knock on my door again, maybe through the Christmas decorations, because I leave them hanging for a while, because that’s something my mother would do. She would say that winter without Christmas is depressing enough and as dad died, she clung to Christmas even more than she ever would.
Neither of us dares to move and soon enough, Frank finishes his wine. It’s getting too dark for us to see what can even happen outside. But I can’t help but wonder. I stand up and look, wishing that I could politely turn off the lights and see anything which would make sense starting from the weird satanic cult from the 90s. But instead there is nothing besides the moon and the stars. I wish for some fire to start. I wish for anything, but instead Frank stands up and approaches me with the empty glass and I wonder what he would even do with it.
I can see him ramming it against my head, the shards knocking me out and then I would look at him, through half closed eyes and not entirely myself. But that doesn’t happen. Instead he goes back, to put the glass and follows my eyes to see what could I possibly see in the darkness. I wonder if this where he comes up with all of his stories with the darkest tints. I wonder if he holds his regrets as well and wonders when would they go away.
I feel like somehow we’ve revealed ourselves in ways we haven’t to others, maybe to lovers and this all feels post-coital thanks to the wine and I can see him riding me. I can see his hair getting on his lips. I can see his fingers intertwining with my own and I’m sure that I have some traces of lust, as I look at him. We still do no actions towards each other. Frank shifts from one foot to another and I wonder if he actually starts wondering if he wants to get another wine bottle, just to lure us properly into bed, because what else do two men do? We’ve talked. There’s not much left, but instead we don’t do that yet.
I remember that I was taught that if you place two people in a room that they will find a way to reproduce and somehow that hadn’t caught up with us having sex yet. Maybe I had my job somewhere deep in the back of my head and so had Frank. I wasn’t sure what was keeping us apart.
“There’s no point in saying that any love will manage to hold us together.” I say.
“Exactly, and I would toast to that.” The inn owner says sadly, standing now besides me and leaning against the window sill, as I just don’t lean against anything so far, my arms crossed, terrified somehow of Frank and his further actions. I know that I’m wrapped around his finger, even if he doesn’t know what does he want to do with me. After all, I am with him in his inn. I could be next if he is behind those who choose if we live or not. Killers are also death in a way. Many people toy with death and could be the ones who decide if we live or not, that’s why the forest is nothing unique either. We don’t know what holds us. Also what could let us go.
I don’t close the gap between me and Frank, instead we look at our reflections in the window and how the last rays of sun fade out, leaving a pitch black night to engulf us all, making us forget what can even a morning be.
In the end there is nothing to talk about besides baring the soul and I’m not exactly sure I am completely ready to do that once more. I think people write enough about melancholy and how there actually isn’t a point of life, so what is there left to discuss?
Looking at Frank changed nothing, I only felt misery crawl on my edges as if I were looking at the eyes of death again. He made me wonder why didn’t I just cross the river back then, whatever the hell it meant. Did it mean crossing onwards to death? What exactly stopped me? It’s been years and I still haven’t found the answer to what has been keeping me because all of a sudden curiosity didn’t seem to be it any longer. I wondered, what would would tip me forwards and how come all my thoughts always went back to misery, boredom and suicide? Was that all that has become of me? Was there truly nothing else left?
Is that truly the case, that if we put anyone into a room, if they would try to reproduce or have sex? Were we all geared towards sex? Well, most of us surely were. Sometimes my mind wouldn’t work properly, even if my whole body was screaming of frustration. I remember last time I was asked when I went to a doctor, he just looked at me and stated that I looked sad. Nothing had ever struck me as much. Was sadness truly written on my face?
What if I would fail? What if I would never find out who the hell had killed all these people? What if I will never find out what had happened to them? What if I would just continue sleeping on the whole case, not knowing or caring? What if it was truly suicide without a trace?
What if the world just held some hidden meaning where we all came to some conclusion? What if we were all puzzle pieces holding hands together? What if I just wanted to die by the end of the day? What if being suicidal was actually a stamp which we held onto for dear life? What if tasting the forbidden fruit, drove one wild?
Frank just kept looking at me openly now and I just wanted a cigarette, putting my hands into my pants pockets.
No matter what was crossing my mind, I should’ve held. And I did. I just nodded to nothing, as if knowing Frank’s offer which he never voiced. The darkest of nights end. I didn’t plan on spending it all with the inn owner, so I excused myself. Frank looked a bit disappointed, probably imagining me pulling on his hair and having animalistic sex with him. I wouldn’t have minded, he was far too attractive and there was something eerie about him which could have made the night somehow cathartic. But instead I went across the hallway with more family paintings and old beaten up rugs to my room. I watched the telly, with the curtains wide open, even if all I could see was my own reflection. I turned off the television to watch the darkness instead.
I remained like that until the morning light came knocking in my sleep, as I sat in the arm chair, my whole body sore.
I called Lucy first thing and checked if there was any static noise call. Maybe the killer decided not to strike because I was here. But the more I woke up, the more I thought of breakfast, the more I recalled my dream. It was simple: I was running in the woods and then I was swimming in a bowl of cereal with packets of kid’s orange juice floating around. It made no sense, just like most dreams don’t. There was no call, there were no missing people, there was information on the three people, but nothing was really making them connect.
All I could think of was that… I managed to get to the river myself before. Maybe by going there, I would manage to get someone out. Maybe they were still at a spot where time stopped and I would get them back, maybe by crossing the river… you could get back.
Wasn’t there in Greek mythology a story that you could cross a river towards the dead? I could barely remember it now, still sleepy and trying to find a nice position to sleep in the armchair. Eventually I shifted onto the bed, crawling under the covers. I ended being woken up by a rather perky Frank who knocked on my door. I expected him to drag me downstairs, but instead he brought a tray with toast and tea.
He placed it right besides me, since the bed was a bit bigger than a single. Maybe he really did want to get laid and I failed his plan. Well, it wasn’t always that you would go to the bar and walk out hand in hand with some fellow hunk.
“You didn’t find anything, did you?” Frank asks me softly, as I take a piece of toast and smear some marmalade on it. I look at the sun reflecting his hair and somehow it feels nostalgic. Many years ago, I had a boyfriend with long hair and for a long while I could remember how it would feel to thread my fingers in his hair, even if the love was long gone and we had parted ways oh so long ago. Frank’s hair was much longer, but I wondered how would it feel compared to the short one I always found my fingers intertwined in. I shook my head at his question, though.
“What?” He asked, not changing tone and I just looked at how his hair curled up. I wondered how would it even feel to touch him, to be on top of him and all of a sudden everything felt sensual and sleepy. A one night stand immersed in day light, but I knew that I couldn’t do that. Maybe after all, there is that one case which becomes personal and if those people really did commit suicide, then it was something which surely hit home very close to me.
When it comes to lovers and ideas, we’ve all stolen them from other people. Because everyone has been in love, everyone has had a thought, therefore… we’re never original. We just love a way, someone else has loved before. Maybe that’s why we die and come back. Maybe that’s the meaning of life… drawing patterns eternally until nothing else works out and mismatches, until the universe just shrinks and we all get glued together, not even into one being, but into nothing. Is it to expand again? I don’t know. There are so many things I don’t know or even understand.
“Did you love Gary?” I ask suddenly and it’s as if Frank needs a reminder. “Your ex-boyfriend.”
“I know he’s my ex-boyfriend, Sheriff.” The inn owner laughs, focusing on a joke he’s found rather than the mention of an ex. Sometimes I don’t want to recall places I’ve been with people I’ve loved, because I’ve fallen out of love with the places I’ve seen, no matter how not tired I have grown of them. They become dead and haunt me like ghosts, which don’t let me sleep. I avoid alleyways where I had kissed, I avoid streets where I’ve held hands for the first time, which is odd because there’s not that many cities around to avoid in the first place. It takes me a while, it takes me a while to forget and even more to stop thinking about.
“Yes.” His face changes as he looks at me, confused, not entirely sure where I am going with this. I wish I knew myself, but I had lost the trail of thought and now I was lost at the minotaur’s maze, not even sure the monster existed in itself, but what I had known was the fact that there was a way out and I had lost it. “But I don’t think that’s crucial to the investigation.”
I wondered if they kept in touch, but Gary Sullivan seemed to be in good enough terms not to claim that he wanted his previous boyfriend in jail. That seemed pleasing enough to hear, well, according to Lucy anyway.
“I had a weird dream, though. Gary asides for now.” Frank says suddenly and puts his toast down and I follow him, as if eating toast will somehow make the story telling worse or more understandable. I wasn’t sure, but instead Frank went over it in his head. “I saw the river. At least, I think I did. But I just sat there nearby, nothing was happening, I was just there, dressed in a hoodie, which is weird because I only wear those to airports and flights, just to stay comfortable and all. Why would I be departing somewhere if I am sitting on the shore? And it’s not like the… river is too deep, as you know.”
Frank had seen the place.
“That’s all I did. I didn’t move and I didn’t see people, I heard noises though. I heard bikes, I heard cars, but I didn’t dare to look behind me. All I would do was look to see the other side of the river and I just stared, as if someone would show up from there, but no one ever did and it was as if I was waiting for something.” I just kept quiet and Frank shrugged, pouring himself some tea. I wondered if he should’ve been at reception, but if he was flirting, sometimes the morals and the dailies fly out of the window. I just observed him and knew that I should keep myself to myself. It was easy for two men to sleep with one another, there’s a reason Grindr is desperately popular. He looked back at me, smiling slightly, probably hoping that he had given some sort of information, it wasn’t even enough to keep him innocent, but to aid the investigation.
“I’m guessing that is the place you are looking for.” He says and I just nod. I somehow manage to wish that I would’ve remembered it better after my dad had died, that I would have taken note of how to get there. But was the problem truly that you needed to be suicidal to get there? I was simply depressed, drained from life while Lucy was going through a break up and no one seemed to be hinting any symptoms of wanting to end their life. On top of everything, where was the guarantee that they would come back?
I knew why I had come back, but why had I seen the place if I was meant to come back? Could I have broken fate? Was I too faithful as well? Were they the doors to hell or heaven or was just there a general disposal afterlife?
Something clicks in my brain and I look at Frank, with his hoop earrings and the necklaces around his neck. He looks as if wizards were from the forest next to us, he would be one. He stares at me, confused, waiting for the next question. He’s a bit anxious, as if he has something to hide even if the autopsy had split him open. He’s the guilty one without committing any crimes.
“Why do you change subject when it comes to Gary?” I ask, wondering why does he always change subject when it comes to him. What if Gary had somehow managed to see something, but we had a fellow police officer question him briefly. All he did was speak fondly of Frank and that had been it. Maybe it’s the season of light break ups. I still wonder what happens to life that it splits people and doesn’t leave them bitter at all, instead leaves both on Grindr looking for something new. I wonder if my ex still thought of me, but all I had was his views on my social media profiles. I mean, after all, it could have just been a coincidence.
“Because he’s my ex?” Frank says, pouring both of us some black coffee. I guess that would be my way to start off the day today, then. I wondered if he had any milk at all, but then he looked like he watched Twin Peaks with black coffee and a cherry pie in hand. Wondering, if he could walk the stairs of the nearby cities with the same warmth that Dale had walked. He grins at me. “Would you want to speak of your ex, Sheriff?”
The air stands still. He looks at me and I’m still in bed, in yesterday’s t-shirt which I wore under the button up. Maybe I should let us have some familiarity, after all, I’m in my boxers underneath all these autumn covers, I could have been lying under the leaves, for all I cared. There’s the second thing. I could open up to him about my own past, to see if any cracks expose anything. But the problem is that he could also think of some lie, just to get me off the track. He could lie about some exquisite love with Gary, just to get me to stop asking the right questions. But he’s right in front of me.
That sounds wrong. That sounds as if he is right in front of me, exposed, his legs wide open and he’s looking at me in the eye. I imagine him with quite the body hair. Now is not the time for the morning horniness. I am thankful for the tray on my lap and I hope that nothing would raise it or imbalance it. I look at Frank. He is awfully attractive and he reminds me lightly of that guy I dated, a long while ago, ticking a box of guys I’ve always found good-looking.
“You can call me Andrea.” I say, making it far closer and causing a smile from Frank. He takes a sip from the pipping hot black coffee.
“That’s a lovely name.” He pauses for a second. “Very Italian. But I’m guessing you are of Italian origin, it’s always nice to stick to your roots sometimes. I’m all over the place, so that’s why my name doesn’t really pin point to much. I was never too drawn to heritage, maybe just to nature, but patriotism or anything, it was far beyond me. I moved here when I was little, kind of getting stuck between two places and a few more until dad settled here eventually with his dream of the inn.”
“So your dad bought an old inn?” I ask curiously, wondering where I had slept on this information, because I always remembered. But then maybe Frank was a bit older than I was. Maybe he travelled with his mom for a while, I recall many things and I guess this wasn’t one of them.
“Yeah. The inn’s history isn’t our own.” He smiles sadly. “It’s for us to build it further. The vanishings aren’t helping the business, Sher-, Andrea.”
“I know. We are doing everything to solve it.” I pause. I can’t change subject. “Tell me about Gary. I need your side of the story, Frank.”
I was envious that I could tell Frank that Gary spoke of him fondly, because I had no idea what was the status on my endeavour. I didn’t know how deep the wound of leaving one another felt. I knew that I was attached far too much. I didn’t even have the right songs in mind when I would think of him and soon enough I laid on top of another man, trying to get the scent and feel out, so that I could move on with promiscuity onto something else. Maybe it was the loneliness which spoke in me. I couldn’t move on, because I wasn’t even trying to. I moved from guy to guy, but I didn’t move from him specifically. Moving on meant opening yourself for someone new and erasing the past completely, taking a wide brush and painting that hole in the wall, knowing that the paint would just drip over the empty places and that would be it.
I didn’t know I could love an empty wall. Why do we fall in love with the idea of a person who sees us? Who still thinks of us? At least I wasn’t there to interview Gary, just to see what the other side was like.
He was the one to stop talking. I just wrote the last message, asking and it went into the wall, I was the one left with the dripping paint, not sure where had my lover went or rather
why
he had gone so silent.
The problem was that every single one of us were bad people by the end of the day. It was done in many simple actions and they would build up making us a bad person by default. I couldn’t stomach to tell Frank that his ex spoke of him fondly when he was so hesitant to open that box, to reveal its contents and shake them about for me to see.
“Maybe you want to know if Gary had seen the river?” Is that what we were calling it now? A River to cross over to the dead? I knew that Frank was throwing me different bones to distract me from their relationship, but I wanted to focus on what I wanted, as well as my curiosity demanded certain things. I wanted to hear other awfully torn relationships, I didn’t want to hear of people who still loved each other, I didn’t want to hear that distance wasn’t a factor, I didn’t want to hear that people could love. The list could go on.
On top of everything I had desires, it was like constantly checking the phone with Frank in front of me. I could observe every single move of his, I could watch the way his trinkets jingled like early Christmas decorations or maybe just like the wrapping paper they were. I wanted to move on, I didn’t want to stay with someone who I knew my relationship ended, with both of us now leaving messages on seen, only now they weren’t even messages. They were statuses.
What would I write?
I sat one evening, when things were fine. When I didn’t want to kill myself, when I wasn’t depressed and I just wondered… what would I even write? I wasn’t even jealous that another man’s mouth was now his, maybe. I just wanted a part of his love, which I had gotten before. I just wanted to snuggle up, I wanted to lay by his side, I wanted him to lean against me and watch whatever was showing on television. The more time went, the less memories I had, the less I could see.
I am standing on a foggy train station. Now, it’s abandoned and I haven’t been to it in years. But I see myself there, standing, looking around, bad memories and dad’s passing. I’m waiting for a train to never come. Neither will my ex.
Is he even an ex if we broke up in such a way?
Frank doesn’t want to talk and neither do I. We both drink our coffee silently, maybe it’s better to leave things without forcing them, to let the result come as it does. My mother had a fridge magnet which said that God helps us find the power to differentiate the things we can change from those we cannot. We grew apart, after dad’s death. Maybe divorce was worse, but it was as if I had chosen dad’s side and I chose to remain dead.
The coffee is bitter enough for me to pour it out on the carpet in disgust.
Love is a light so bright that blinds you, I forget that. So is desire. I miss both feelings. I miss unwrapping a new person, which I’ve desired for so long. But then what about the thrill? What happens to that? That always vanishes, leaving something else, sour and bitter behind. The feeling of loneliness comes with confusion or maybe I’m too young to crave for stability. I think I was.
I keep looking at Frank with his dark eyes and trinkets, his bracelets, his hippy looking wear. He stands out from all the other men I’ve been with which fall under different stereotypical definitions of gay men, we’ve all fallen there. Instead, there’s him and I can’t help but wonder what it feels like to hold him down or to be held down by him. I want to feel his lips and his tongue, I want to feel him tilt his head, get a full boner just from kissing me.
With him I feel like I’m betraying all the other men I’ve ever loved, but am I really?
I don’t know how to approach the other man which drinks his coffee black. We sit there silently, the only threshold we’ve crossed together holding hands was the fact that I’ve allowed him to use my name, that’s it. How does one flirt? How does one go back to living, when the thoughts are infested with another? Do I even want to go there, holding Frank’s hands, all over again?
Do I want to love him?
He hadn’t shaved yet, so his stubble is larger than usual and I wonder if he will do his morning routine right after breakfast with me. Maybe he is also at loss with our silence.
“Anyone who says that they’ve never considered suicide is a liar. The difference is that… some do it, some don’t. It’s a question of when. I think even when we die, the choice is ours to depart or not. There’s a reason there’s so many ghosts, Andrea. They never wanted to die. Their choice was made.” He says and turns to me. He’s rather close and I know that is ridiculous, we’ve been talking to a while, but instead I stretch my hand to the cup of coffee and sip from it, Frank smiling understandingly.
Maybe I am the one who is not ready for anything at all.
I leave that morning back to work, I listen to Lucy, I listen to everyone. But Frank is on my mind. Maybe I’m not the world’s best policeman and all of a sudden I feel young again, I feel full of doubt about love and my job. His eyes haunt me, how he turned around to see me leave and I just drove off. I wish I could play with a ball of yarn like a kitten, see it unravel, maybe it would give me a hint.
Suddenly, it’s not all about my job or anything. I start thinking of Frank. What is one’s definition of love at first sight? Is it all about knowing? Is it about the other person flirting? Is it about the attraction? What is it about? Or is it all about our desire to never be alone in the first place? My morning at work came crashing on me like waking up to reality from a dream, when my father died. When all of a sudden I had to go back to school again.
There was life beyond Frank and investigating him, even if I despised now knowing such a life. It hit me that I liked him when I was driving, it’s minor attraction but it all starts like a merry-go-round and then it speeds up until you lose control and you’re in the arms of the other person, wounded, bleeding and the other might kiss the wounds if they’re aware that you’re terminal.
I wanted to go back to Frank’s. I had his phone number, thanks to working for the police and I wondered if I could invite him for a coffee and how unethical would that be. How long would I be able to keep my attraction under wraps? What if it grows? What if I end up loving him? It all scares me just from thinking about his eyes. His dark eyes which reflect the coffee he drinks and my own smile, because I’ve been attracted for a while.
Patience was never a virtue for me, I could never wait. I would place the phone in front of the couch and wait until it would ring or vibrate, depending on what year it was. Slow development wasn’t anything I liked either, that’s why I didn’t know why wasn’t I jumping on Frank at the same time. It seemed ridiculous that I had nothing going on and explained why I enjoyed hook ups so much, because the break ups were so minor that you could blink and it wouldn’t matter. But when they got too complicated, that’s when it would get screwed up. It was like those success stories everyone dreams about. They happen and eventually you break up. Fear was hanging me by its noose. I was already fearing everything about Frank.
Many years after dad had died, I dreamt that I was back in high school with all the extracurricular activities going on, that all of them were weighing me down. I tried to be there for people, but like anyone else I felt alone and this would transfer onto dreams. I was telling my mother that I had always been suicidal and then she told me that we would find me some help. Then I woke up, my ex’s name popping in my head. We weren’t going through a good streak and just like any couple we would fight.
I didn’t want murder, disappearance or anything to start off with Frank like this. But it had already begun, he knew that I had been suicidal in the past. As I lay on the desk of my job, I wondered what if making myself suicidal again was worth finding the place again.
It’s not like I wasn’t holding the blade already with it’s tip pointing at the X. I could find out the mystery of what was behind it all, I just needed to focus. But I wouldn’t be able to come back, I think we all understood, me and Frank, that once you crossed the shallow stream that had been it. I didn’t cross it because I was naïve, because I thought that there was something else left in life. That’s why I just stood at a very safe distance, but I was suicidal, alright.
Why don’t we work on relationships?
I should’ve continued long distance with my ex, I should’ve let them be with me. I should’ve travelled, we shouldn’t have let distance ruin us, we shouldn’t have separated so easily and on such good terms, that one day… the die would roll the same number again.
I had a crush on Frank now. Frank was the closure I needed. There was no more point in having someone else from the past. I still kept my head on the table and everyone rushed along, it felt like a scene from a movie, maybe a deleted scene from Fight Club, only I wasn’t scared of losing my masculinity.
Maybe all I thought and knew was wrong?
Was I actively trying to make myself suicidal once more?
I didn’t know the answer to that and at the same I felt paranoid, that nothing was happening with Frank. Was that it? Was that enough for me to see the river once more? Was that enough for me to cross it? Was that enough for me to ask Frank, the angel of death? What if all the people we’ve loved were angels of death? What if they just waltzed with us, spinning us around and around, dancing on the edge of a blade, getting our toes cut? What if love was the ultimate suicide? Is that why new people we love are so close to spots where we may lose ourselves to death?
But what about the vanishing people?
Did they love as well? Or was it just me? Was it failed marriages? What was the catalyst for them? Obviously love is not always the reason, I just happen to care and have fear of being alone. Maybe I could talk to Frank about it, but my blood would go cold and fear would dominate me, as I would think of it.
I still think that by the end of the day it’s still matters of the heart which drive us to the brink.
I couldn’t help but wonder and their names seemed to be escaping my memory when I would think of them, just like any other deceased, only time erases memories. That’s how we forget love as well. It doesn’t matter what had happened, it was so long ago that we can’t recall what we are missing in the first place. So in a way love never dies, we just forget why we had loved in the first place. Was that a reason to go?
I wondered if Frank had actually felt suicidal and if I would be able to follow him. Would anyone be able to follow someone just to see them die? Would they follow them? What would happen? Was this truly the only way to do suicide now? Would another body appear? Was this the way the heaven? Why was I believeing in this crazy theory of suicide anyway?
Would I have gone with my ex?
What the hell was stopping me from telling him that I miss him?
I would never want to get my get my heart broken again. But was it really broken when it was just stolen and taken away, never to return? What if I were the one to never return?
Nostalgia kills bad memories. The more time goes, the more we forget and the more we fall in love all over. That’s why during mid life crises people reunite or divorce simply to be single. Some people just don’t work either and it takes that long to figure out. Some become bitter. Who knows.
It wasn’t as if I could just kiss Frank in the silence with his smile. The more I thought about everything, the more everything unravelled like a thread. I didn’t know where to go from here. I hated flowers and I wasn’t exactly interested in giving a bouquet and serenading. I was used to asking for dates which would end in sex, but now it wasn’t that sex didn’t matter, it was all about the fact that I wanted it to be different.
I wanted to arrive and see Frank, I wanted to go and see him. I could already feel my heart breaking. I could understand that his inn was at the world’s end and during the briefings I no longer cared about the murders, I just wanted to rush outside. I wanted to be in his arms-
I wanted to make out with him.
It was always a subtle thing to say to men who I enjoyed, whom I had wanted deeply. I would tell them that I had wanted to make out with him-
I look around, as if someone could see that I craved a cigarette and if I could I would’ve lit it. I had written a poem once, about how infatuated I was, because even now judging by the colour of my cheeks… I was in love. I could recall how they sat opposite me, it wasn’t even about firsts. It was about falling in love so suddenly and losing the person so fast.
I had a gut feeling that Frank would’ve enjoyed that poem, that he would skim through it at first, just to make sure that I wasn’t playing a number on him, because everyone did and then… he would let it sink in.
I came back home that night and I searched for the poem, but to no avail.
All I could recall was that I had loved him, that I had wanted him to rip my ribcage open and keep my heart, because I couldn’t take it anymore. I slept badly that night, knowing that I had Frank’s number from the police records. I wish I could call him and talk. I barely had any friends, because I would sleep with most of them or end up dating, which easily explained why I was alone now.
But I didn’t feel lonely for friends, I felt lonely for someone to actually make love to. The thought of it would make me sink my head deeper into the pillows, the more I aged, the less I changed. I felt like I was stagnating, that all I wanted was love and I was losing it. I wasn’t only losing it because of love, but I was losing it because I simply felt sad…
Is this why people went to the forest? Was this another version of the Japanese suicide forest? Was this a cleaner version? Was this the one where we go to heaven, if suicide was forbidden? Was this where we would just ascend? What if it was harmony that led us to go? What if those people just knew that the end was there… while mine wasn’t.
Was that why I didn’t bother to cross the shallow river? I could’ve just taken off my sneakers, held them in hand and I was in shorts anyway and I would’ve been with dad.
Why hadn’t I wanted that?
All of a sudden I felt guilty for not wanting to unite with my father.
But then I would roll on the other side of the bed and wonder, what if my ex was getting laid far more than I was. I had my success, but it inevitably becomes a contest, who actually managed to get better, who managed to score more times and somehow that determined the core of happiness.
It was always about what if I wasn’t masculine enough, what if there was something wrong with the mole on my neck, what if I was more attractive if I would be taller, what if I was too flamboyant at times? What was it that would make my ex get laid more? Or was it simply that I wasn’t enough to pursue and he was. I ended up scrolling down Grindr to see if he was online… wherever he was now and I stared at his chest.
Was he actually getting more laid?
It kept going round and round in my head, also the question why would Frank even sleep with me, let alone touch me.
I never told my father that I was gay. I always wonder how he would’ve reacted.
I recall sitting next to him, he didn’t have that much left, looking back now and he looked at me. One of the last desires to pass on the knowledge to your child, which you will never see again was upon him.
“No guy understands women and those who do, are womanizers.” And then I looked at the kitchen window to see mom. I didn’t ask him if he understood her and to this day I believe that they had a happy marriage until his death. Mom never spoke ill of him, she cried as much as I did and I wondered why didn’t he take her with her. I would’ve killed myself if my beloved took their life, I wanted to tell her when we laid on the couch once, both our of tears and she was stroking my hair, telling me that dad was in a better place now.
That’s when I took the bike, because I couldn’t take it anymore.
I was so scared.
I am scared.
Instead of taking the bike, I took the car. I had no intention of killing myself, but I wanted to see Frank at this hour. Sometimes he would pop on my Grindr but we would keep quiet about it, discreet. He had also chosen a terrible photo of himself. I didn’t hit him up and there was no rain for me to be soaked and just kiss him and proceed to have hot sex with him. Instead it took a while to drive, because I had taken a wrong turn. I woke him up.
And he stared at me, just as mad.
Maybe I wanted to join my dad. Maybe I should’ve asked the angel of death to take me. There’s a scene in a movie which touched me deeply, being closeted for so long… a gay orphan comes out to his lover, as if he were his father. Maybe I wanted to do that. Maybe I wanted to do that not only with my own father, but repeat the tender scene with Frank as well. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to hear that I was loved. I was going crazy and he looked at me as if I was crazy.
It’s not like it would be the night where we made love.
Sometimes… there is no answer to suicide.
He was in pyjamas.
I was not over my ex.
“You want to go to the woods?” Frank asked me softly.
The investigation was going nowhere.
As we kept going, I thought he would shoot me in the back, stab me, but instead we just kept walking on and on.
I started crying. I thought of dad as Frank still walked in his slippers and he didn’t say a word. Sometimes, we just don’t fall in love at all. I would never get over his death. Maybe that’s why I chose to cross the river at that time.
I don’t think I will ever explain why people choose suicide at that point. Murakami always choses characters who have no explanation to do it and maybe that’s why my mother disliked it, because he never answered why. Sometimes, we just fade.
Sometimes, we want to know what lies on the other side.
“Go on.” Frank said as we both kept going, reaching the river. I turned around to face him and that’s when I saw his holster, but it kept me calm. I was going to release the spider. I didn’t see any bodies or any burials nearby. I could’ve had sex with him. I could’ve solved the mystery, but I didn’t.
I looked at him strongly in the eyes and tried to grin. Sometimes
love dies
before the other even realizes it.
I think briefly of my attraction to him and our silence.
I think of it as an ode and I take off my shoes, so that they don’t get wet. I take off my pants too, leaving my oversized hoodie on. I step into the water and there’s no shot.
Instead I feel a body slam itself into me and pushing me down, rocks hitting my cheeks.
I don’t ask why-
Instead I can see him strangling me instead, underwater, myself gasping for air, my legs trembling with my whole body. But it’s more of an instinct than a reaction. I’ve been too heartbroken to care, I’ve been doodling in my mind the days away.
In the last second of life, where I am in two places, I see dark wings on Frank’s back, matching his hair. Maybe that’s how death looked like after all. Death comes in many ways. In mine it came with infatuation. I’m sure they would send another cop, higher up and he would find Frank for my own murder, but
I didn’t care.
He let go of me and looked at me, as I had crossed the other side now, transparent, now with my clothes in hand. I had loved.
grasp the sanity 